Edward Everett was a clergyman, educator and statesman who served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1825-35) and as the governor of Massachusetts (1836-39). After serving four years as U.S. minister to Great Britain, he returned to Harvard, his alma mater, as president of the college (1846-49). Everett was a celebrated orator; one of his best-known speeches was delivered just prior to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.